Cancellation Policies may sound unexciting, difficult to understand, and just a plain waste of time. But in today’s podcast, I’d like to convince you otherwise! Cancellation policies are simple to create, easy to explain to you and your students, and will save you hours of frustration and lost income! Want to find out more? Listen to the podcast my friend! 🙂

Remember – You’re in control.

We tend to point our fingers at everyone or everything around us when we are faced with problems in our business. Like when we are faced with too many cancellations, we tend to look at our student(s) and think: “It’s their fault that I’ve got so many cancellations this month, and it’s their fault I’m not making enough money as a result.”

Finger pointing is not the way to create positive change in your business.

Pointing our fingers at others, or at events outside our control robs us of the ability to change things!

Remember: you’re in charge of your business. The problem of too many cancellations is first of all – your problem! That’s the bad news. The good news: You’re also the solution to this problem!

Change needs to happen at the beginning of your business relationships.

Needs to be part of your sales process.

Be sure you’re qualifying your students – filtering your prospects to make sure they are a great fit for you to work with.

Filter step one: make sure your prospect has time to work with you!

Don’t ASS-U-ME – it makes an ass out of you and me – don’t assume that just because a student wants to work with you, they have the time to work with you! They may not! It’s your job to find out!

How? Share how you organize and give your classes. How long are your classes, and how often? Tell your prospect up front and make sure they can agree to this BEFORE you start working together.

Important! If your prospect doesn’t seem able to commit to your basic class requirements, you need to feel free to thank them for their time in meeting with you, but it just won’t work out for them at this time. (What is your basic class requirement per week?)

Basic Qualification Filters for Your Sales Process

Filter your student based on how much you charge. You can do this by explaining right from the start, how much your fees are.

Charge for blocks of time together, and in advance. (Try to move away from charging per hour rates – like you work an hour, then ask your student to pay you for that hour.)

Filter your student on need to work with you – do they really need to be there? (Remember: don’t assume they need to work with you!)

Look to work with students who WANT TO be improving their English skills.

Create Your Cancellation Policy

Write like you talk – your policy doesn’t have to be complicated or in legal jargon.

Explain your rules about how you will handle cancellations.

You’re not asking for permission to set rules – this is your business, and it’s your job to set how your business works. Your policies are a big way to creating that structure.

Consider an 8 hour cancellation notice. If your student cancels with 8 or more hours notice to your class, you will be happy to reschedule.

If they cancel with less than 8 hours notice, they will be charged for class. Class will be considered given, and no reschedule options given.

Pay attention to your students – some students are honest, and may not be trying to take advantage of you – you can offer some flexibility with them.

Make sure your students – yes all of them – sign your policy.

Keep a copy for yourself, and give a copy to each student.

Make sure you read over the document with your students present – and ensure they understand how it works. Ask them: do you understand this cancellation policy?

Episode Sponsor!

Today’s Podcast episode is brought to you by the e-book: 3 Simple But Powerful Sales Secrets Every Freelance ESL Teacher Must Know to Find New Students. If you haven’t already, please grab your copy today!

Some of What You’ll Get Out Of The Book

You’ll learn how to stop competing on having the lowest price.

You’ll learn how to differentiate yourself from every other English teacher in your area.

You’ll get a clear idea of who your IDEAL student is and why you should stop working with EVERYONE who wants to take class with you.

You’ll create a sales process that will help your prospects become your clients – instead of you pushing them!

You’ll apply the ideas presented in the book to get your first student. (Or 50th!)

The focus of today’s podcast is to answer a listener’s question around how to get started from ZERO.

Show Notes:

The problem of overcomplicating things. We tend to over think what we need to do to run our own teaching business. We stand on the outside looking at other ESL teaching businesses and see what looks like a vast ocean of things that are needing to be done in order to make this work.

In reality, starting up is simple. The vastness you see as you look in from the outside, has been created over time, and from regular and persistent work. But it very likely didn’t start out that way!

We tend to think we need things perfect before we can start. False. We just need to start! Minimal viable(Useful) product!

Question 3: How will I deliver my services?

Question 4: Who is my ideal student?

Vital – and we keep mentioning this in the podcast, don’t we? It’s so important to know who you do your best work with.

The wrong students in your business, and not because they are bad people, but because you don’t remain in your strengths zone when you serve them – will make your work seem harder, will drain you, and can run the risk of retarding your business’ growth!

Fill your business with your IDEAL students. Do you know who they are?

Join Us for A Free Webinar: Let’s figure out who your ideal student is!

Lesson planning can quickly become one of the most challenging things to keep up with as you grow your business as a freelance English teacher. In today’s podcast, I’ll share 4 time saving hacks to help you work smarter, not harder as you plan for multiple classes. Listen to today’s podcast here:

In this episode:

1.Work with similar groups.

2. Take advantage of commutes + dead time.

Bring notebook, pen, plan in drive time, listen to podcasts for class etc.

3. Pick AND Stick: a resource and stick with it for 3 to 4 months.Avoid getting lost on Pinterest or Youtube following endless bunny trails or just plain getting pulled off course by something ‘more interesting’ or ‘fun.’

Bonus: How can you shape the same lesson to meet the needs of other students? Sometimes a simple reduction in time of same video can make it more useful for lower level students. Sometimes more difficult comprehension questions and up the difficulty level for more advanced students.

Researching your competition – other freelance teachers and language teaching companies – is a vital part of your job as a freelance English teacher if you’re serious about growing your business – but watch yourself! Researching your competitors can be one of the most dangerous things you can do as an entrepreneur. Listen to today’s podcast to find out why, and what to do about it!

Research can be a dangerous and very slippery hill to tread on! As you dig into the market, you’re bound to find companies or other teachers who are way further along on their business journey than you are – and if you’re not careful, you could very easily find yourself in one of the deadliest traps an entrepreneur can fall into: comparing yourself to someone else.

It happened to me just recently, and in today’s podcast I’ll share what happened!

Main Points

Be careful: researching your competitors is good, but can easily lead you to comparing yourself to them.

Some of the most difficult times I’ve had as a freelance teacher, and I’m sure you can relate to this, has been during vacation times. Today’s podcast will help you think about solutions that will help you serve your students even better, while keeping your income FLOWING even during vacation times.

Christmas, Easter, summer vacations when school is out….

The weird thing, we know these times are coming – they don’t change from one year to the next – yet we rarely think ahead for them, right?

Every year – say for Christmas, do you find yourself in scramble mode, trying to figure out how to make ends meet when your students stop taking class for the season?

Here are a few ideas to help you brainstorm your vacation day cereal bag!

Kids:

Most kids get off from school at certain times ofthe year – but parents must keep working…what if you offered a camp or special after school/ out of school program to help parents who still need to work.

My wife works in an after school program. What if you offered one?

Adults – working professionals, if that is your market, are used to going to training workshops. Seminars. Webinars.

What is stopping you from offering one? Or two? Or three over the next month or two?

What topics are areas of need for your students? Don’t think about grammar or vocabulary, or fluency. Think about e-mail writing, how to make effective English presentations with powerpoint, How to ace your next English conference call?

One company we worked for hired us to do a whole series of workshops around effective e-mail in English and power pointpresentations.

We charged much more than regular classes because they were short, and the material easy to cover.

Key Questions to help you begin to move forward:

Who do you serve?

What pain points do you see?

How much $$ Do you need to cover your seasonal down time?

How much do you need to charge per student/participant and how many times do you need to provide your solution to cover your costs?

In today’s episode I will talk about how to get regular students to work with – In other words: how do I keep my students coming back for more?

How to get regular students > Think Long Term

Here’s an important question to think about that should have a deep impact on how you run your freelance teaching business: how long is a student going to be working with me?

I bet that right now, your biggest question is: how can I get a student to work with me in the first place?

That’s an important question, but I’d like to encourage you to return to the first one: how long will my students work with me?

Are you just thinking short term? (I’ve got bills to pay! Get them in, and get them quick!)

Are you thinking long term? Get one in, and serve him/her so well that they work with me for a year or more!

Question: what do you have to do today so that your students stay with you over the long haul?

How to build your business to attract long term students:

1. Charge them fairly
2. Serve them like nobody else
3 Make your classes fun – if you’re having a good time, chances are your students are having a good time too
4. Follow structure/program – students need to feel they are going somewhere…and that they’ve been somewhere. Show them often!
5. Be friendly and approachable. This is one of your secret weapons.